Incentive award programs have been developed in a variety of industries to promote customer loyalty. Generally, such programs reward customers for repeat business with the same merchant or service provider by accumulating reward points which can then be redeemed in a plurality of ways, including exchanging the reward points for additional goods and services that may be selected from an approved list or a redemption catalog for example. The reward points are usually calculated using a predetermined formula or ratio that relates a customer's purchase volume (i.e., in terms of money value or some other volume parameter) to a certain number of reward points. For example, reward points may be issued on a one-for-one basis with each dollar that a customer spends on particular goods and services.
One well-known example of a customer incentive program is a “frequent flyer” program which rewards airlines passengers with “mileage points” based upon the distances that the passengers fly with a particular airline. The mileage points may then be redeemed for free airfare or free car rentals. Other incentive award programs are designed to induce usage of particular financial instruments, such as credit cards or debit cards, by accumulating reward points or dollar value points based upon the volume of purchases made using the particular financial instrument. These types of programs may be designed such that customers of the financial institution accumulate reward points which can be redeemed for selected goods or services or, alternatively, such that customers accumulate points which have a dollar value which can be applied toward a credit or debit balance, depending on whether the instrument is a credit or debit instrument, for example.
These and other similar incentive award programs are described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,774,870 and 6,009,412, issued to Thomas W. Storey and assigned to Netcentives, Inc., both of which are hereby incorporated by reference to the extent that they describe an automated rewards system. For more information on loyalty systems, transaction systems, electronic commerce systems, and digital wallet systems, see, for example, the Shop AMEX™ system as disclosed in Ser. No. 60/230,190 filed Sep. 5, 2000; the MR as Currency™ and Loyalty Rewards Systems as disclosed in Ser. No. 60/197,296 filed on Apr. 14, 2000, Ser. No. 60/200,492 filed Apr. 28, 2000, and Ser. No. 60/201,114 filed May 2, 2000; a digital wallet system as disclosed in U.S. Ser. No. 09/652,899 filed Aug. 31, 2000; a stored value card as disclosed in Ser. No. 09/241,188 filed on Feb. 1, 1999; a system for facilitating transactions using secondary transaction numbers as disclosed in Ser. No. 09/800,461 filed on Mar. 7, 2001; and also in related provisional application Ser. No. 60/187,620 filed Mar. 7, 2000, Ser. No. 60/200,625 filed Apr. 28, 2000, and Ser. No. 60/213,323 filed May 22, 2000, all of which are herein incorporated by reference. Other examples of online membership reward systems are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,774,870, issued on Jun. 30, 1998, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,009,412, issued on Dec. 29, 1999, both of which are hereby incorporated by reference. A further example of a loyalty and reward program may be found at the AIR MILES® Web site, which describes a loyalty program offered by The Loyalty Group, a privately held division of Alliance Data Systems of Dallas, Tex., and which is hereby incorporated by reference. Additional information relating to smart card and smart card reader payment technology is disclosed in Ser. No. 60/232,040, filed on Sep. 12, 2000, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,742,845; 5,898,838 and 5,905,908, owned by Datascape; all of which are hereby incorporated by reference. Information on point-of-sale systems and the exploitation of point-of-sale data is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,832,457, issued on Nov. 3, 1998 to O'Brien et al., which is hereby incorporated by reference.
Portions of each of the above-described programs may be used to induce customer loyalty to particular merchants or service providers who directly provide goods or services to the consumer. In other words, these prior art frequency awards programs provide a means for retail businesses, financial institutions, and others in direct contact with the customers they service to provide incentives to their customers to encourage repeat and/or volume business. However, these programs do not sufficiently address the similar needs of businesses that are further up in the distribution chain, such as manufacturers, to promote volume purchases by customers based upon, for example, brand loyalty independent of the retail source for the purchase. Additionally, the prior art programs do not provide a means for monitoring, tracking, and/or analyzing consumer and product data across distribution channels for a particular manufacturer and/or the variety of goods which that manufacturer places into the stream of commerce for ultimate sale to consumers by a retailer.
Generally, before a product arrives at a retail establishment for sale to a consumer, the product travels through a distribution chain which originates with the manufacturer. The manufacturer typically sells its products to a wholesaler who in turn sells those products to various retailers. Most modern retailers implement some form of computerization or electronic technology in their day-to-day operations. This technology typically consists of using point-of-sale (POS) systems for automating checkout procedures, assisting sales personnel, and the like. POS systems generally include one or more automated check-out terminals which are capable of inputting or sensing and interpreting a symbol or other indicia related to the product, such as a Universal Product Code (UPC), generally comprising a machine-readable bar code coupled with a human-readable UPC number, that is printed on a label or tag which is placed on each item of merchandise to be purchased. The manufacturer may assign and mark each product that it sells with a UPC. Conventionally, once the product reaches the retailer, the retailer further identifies each product with a Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) number or code as well as other information for identifying a specific item or style of merchandise. The retailer's SKU number may be either an entirely different number used to identify each product (e.g., by style) or a modified version of the manufacturer's UPC number, derived, perhaps, by adding a SKU number to the UPC number for example.
A POS terminal, a kiosk terminal, or a sales person's hand-held terminal might be coupled to a store computer system, such as a network server or some other store platform host, which is able to recognize and process UPC and/or SKU information which has been manually keyed-in or sensed and interpreted by a device, such as a barcode reader, coupled to the terminal. The computer system typically includes a database which stores information relating to the retailer's product inventory, such as stocked merchandise, a UPC and/or SKU number for each item of merchandise, and various types of merchandise identification information, such as price, inventory, style, color, size, etc., which is associated with each UPC and/or SKU number. When a customer purchases an item of merchandise, store personnel frequently use an automated terminal to read the barcode markings which are attached to the item. A computer interprets the UPC and/or SKU number comprised by the barcode, accesses the database to determine the price for each item, and maintains a running total of the total transaction price.
One problem that results from the independent identification schemes of the manufacturer and the retailers is that there is no way for the manufacturer to track the quantity of any particular product that each retailer sold. For example, even if a manufacturer obtains all of the SKU numbers representing items purchased from Retailer 1 and Retailer 2 by consumers, the manufacturer has no means for determining which SKU number corresponds to the manufacturer's UPC, since the UPC's and SKU numbers of the various retailers are not tracked and matched.
In view of the foregoing, a need exists for an incentive or loyalty program which overcomes the shortcomings of the prior art. Thus, there is a need for a system and method which provides a universal customer incentive program that networks various levels of the product distribution chain, such as manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers, to provide incentives to consumers to purchase products not only from a particular merchant or group of merchants but also from particular manufacturers, regardless of the specific merchant who sells the manufacturer's products to the consumer. Additionally, a need exists for a system and method for gathering data which associates particular consumer purchasing behaviors and specific products or product criteria across a manufacturer's distribution channels.
Consumers may utilize computing devices to assist in the purchase and/or loyalty process, and in particular, the consumer may utilize a PDA to facilitate the purchase and/or loyalty process. A PDA (personal digital assistant) includes any mobile hand-held device that provides computing, information storage and/or retrieval capabilities for personal or business use, often used for keeping schedule calendars, note-entering and address book information. PDA products include, for example, the Hewlett-Packard's Palmtop and 3Com's PalmPilot, the details of which are hereby incorporated by reference. An increasing number of software and hardware applications have been written or developed for PDAs, including the combination of PDAs with telephones and paging systems. PDAs were originally used in a disconnected fashion, functioning as a stand-alone personal computer, but the devices can now be connected to the internet for the purposes of browsing content.
A PDA portal includes a method for collecting specific information of interest to a particular user and making it available for use on their device. The updating activity is typically executed when the device is connected to a network and “synchronized”. Since there is a staggering amount of content available on the network, users typically identify which content they want refreshed each time. The PDA portal offers “channels” to the users that embody specific content available from various content providers, such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, or MSN. Typically, the content from these channels that is available for access is general, public information. In other words, very little content that is specific to an individual is available for access. Although the general information has value, it is minimal when compared to the opportunity for placing personal information on the user's PDA. Examples of personal content that may be desired is their monthly account statement, a travel itinerary, or an investment portfolio and its statement. This is information that could be of use to customers in the disconnected manner that is offered by PDAs. Moreover, integrating public and private data into one source may be valuable, such as, for example, the system disclosed in U.S. Ser. No. 09/893,391 entitled SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR INTEGRATING PUBLIC AND PRIVATE DATA, filed on Jun. 28, 2001 by inventors Mitchell, et al., the entire contents of which is hereby incorporated by reference.
After a user has selected the content channels he wants to be placed onto his device, each time the user synchs his device, this content will be collected from the corresponding locations, assembled and placed onto the device. Since not all content will fit on a single page, the portal will typically interrogate the page looking for links to additional content pages. If present, additional content requests are made of the content source. Once collected, the content is assembled and stored on the connected PDA device.
Currently, the PDA portals do not offer secured personal content. If they do offer personal data, it is either not confidential (like addresses and directions) or available in a clear and unsecured state. A problem with using this method for secure content is that it is visible throughout the process. If the content includes account numbers, they may be exposed, and could be stolen and improperly used. The fundamental problem is often distributing personal content that must be secured into an unsecure environment. PDAs are inherently not secure. Being small and self-contained (to enable disconnected operation), they are easily lost or stolen, and downloading confidential content (such as account numbers or their balances) on the PDA that can be easily accessed by anyone other than the user is unacceptable by many.
In a connected environment, the conventional wisdom is to use end to end security using the standard protocols (SSL) to secure the content between its source and its use. When its use is complete, the content is usually gone, as it is not stored on the PC. A disconnected environment is different in that the content is usually stored on the device for use when the device has been removed from the network. The definition of end to end security must therefore change to accommodate this difference, such that the content be secured once it leaves its source until the user has been properly authenticated on the device.
Portals usually serve as a middle layer between the user and the content source. Traditional security measures work between the client and the source, but when a middle layer is added to the environment, there is a period when the content is exposed, when it is decrypted on the portal from the source and before it is encrypted for delivery to the users client. There is known security hardware that can be used for internet sites to insure the content is always secured. One of the difficulties of using this technology is that the portal still needs to be aware of the links that are present in the content to collect all the content of the channel.
Since most of the content currently being placed onto these devices is general, the process being used to collect the content from the different channels and prepare it for the device does not need to be secure. But, since the content must be interrogated to determine any links that must be traversed to collect all the applicable data, the content is kept in an unsecured state at the PDA portal or the PDA. Once the content has been prepared, it is moved to and placed onto the PDA as it is, unsecured. The process must therefore be amended to insure the content is secure in how it is collected, assembled and delivered to the PDA device.